Fiercely And Brilliant
by FluffySpook
Summary: Harry has a chat with an old friend. And I've added a scene of the direct aftermath of 10.6. Would have been nice to have seen something like this in that weird mixture of scenes at the end of 10.6.
1. Chapter 1

_**So it seems whether you're reading it or writing it, fic is therapeutic. I'm still flaming at Kudos. This is the result of not knowing what to do with my anger. Rated M for violence.**_

_**I know this scenario is completely and utterly unrealistic but SO WAS THE BLOODY ENIDNG SO WHAT DOES IT MATTER :D Enjoy if possible!**_

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><p>In the world of espionage, co-incidences don't happen. They just don't.<p>

Harry's been standing stiffly over her grave for forty-five minutes, feeling the world run past in the same way he can feel his frozen fingers. Though the material light hasn't quite begun to fade, everything surrounding her headstone is still invisible, still dark, irrelevant. He can't remove his eyes from her name – they're screaming at him more intensely than the moment she claimed her face was cold. He stands and listens to that invented screaming. He listens for anything that could ever snatch him from this state and take him to somewhere new, so very far away. When nothing comes, he chips another tear from his face and waits for the man approaching him to walk past before he can release the floods of salty water again.

But the man – tall, grey coat – does not carry on walking; instead he assumes his place next to Harry and waits for the realisation to hit. Which it does quickly. Very, very hard.

For a long moment Harry just stares, watching Malcolm's breath match his own in turning the air to a series of rapidly dissipating ghosts. The smile the ex-Spook offers is Malcolm in a nutshell; he knows Harry wont feel it now, but the gesture of it invites him in. It's a trait no other human Harry has ever met seems to have. For the first time in five weeks, Harry attempts to return the smile.

They shake hands (but it's more like holding), bare skin into a leather glove. It's only then Harry realises he physically cannot feel anything and quickly slides his icy paw back into his coat pocket. Malcolm waits a beat before breaking the peace, gently, as ever, and decides in that moment not to enquire about the cuts lining Harry's jaw, or the fading of a black eye.

"I'm so sorry Harry." He sighs as they stare at the uneroded stone, "Really. I don't know what else to say. I'm just so sorry."

They're practiced at this. They've mastered their replies through silence and exchange merely subtle glances. The look Harry offers Malcolm here though is one he has not seen in many years and it makes his stomach twist inside. With no words that could justify anything he feels, he reaches out and places a gloved hand on his ex-bosses shoulder blade, keeping it there, letting him know that he _can_ feel, and one day, he will again.

There are three main questions that surged to the front of Harry's mind as soon as he realised his company was Malcolm. And he's aware Malcolm probably knows them too. So they say nothing else where they stand before they move off together slowly to a bench that overlooks the East of the cemetery. The silence of the outdoors somehow doesn't fit though; after long moments of this alien tranquillity, Malcolm speaks again.

"Harry if you want me to leave you alone I will. It was a co-incidence, me turning up while you were here. If you'd prefer to be left in peace I mean. I promise I didn't come looking for you intentionally."

Finally, heavily raising his head, Harry replies barely audibly.

"No," he says, "stay."

And Malcolm understands.

"This is the only time I was planning on... saying goodbye," the ex-Spook explains.

"How did you – "

"Safely, I can promise you that. I can give you my word. No-one knows who isn't meant to."

Harry nods.

"Technically you're not supposed to know either though, are you Malcolm."

With his sentence appears the slightest glimmer of humour which Malcolm amplifies by giving a hearty chuckle. Though Harry can't bring himself to do the same, he smiles at the point well made and honestly wonders for a moment how Malcolm came to learn of Ruth's death when it could never possibly have been through the grapevine, or an obituary. Another thing to be left unanswered it would seem. As is his life.

"How are you keeping by the way?" he asks with a genial change of tone, "You look well."

But latter sentence ends the conversation where it began really. Malcolm smiles and answers out of manners anyway, rubbing his hands together briskly against the arctic air.

"I'm fine, thank you. I'm rested. But I have to ask the same of you I'm afraid. You understand I wouldn't usually in such circumstances when the answer is so obvious, but..." His eyes drag themselves up slowly, like they're breaking some sort of assumed boundary as they fall to Harry's black eye and bruised cheek. "Even your nose looks like it's been broken," he admits, no longer able to leave it unsaid. "What in God's name happened to you?"

Going immediately against protocol as easily as it's ever been, Harry explains. Not name-specific of course, but the detail is there. The physical torment in particular as they mutually agree the emotional can and will speak for itself.

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><p><em>Five weeks earlier.<em>

By the time he heaves his heavy body upwards and away from her, his shirt is wet through with her blood. It sticks to his stomach and chest, pastes itself against him, stains his right hand the most vibrant and screaming red. It dyes the grass around her where she rests, so quietly now, safe from the agony and chances they almost had. But it's strange – as he looks over her, she seems miles away. Like she's falling or sinking further into the earth.

He is surprised he can stand straight. Erin, no longer with her arm on his back, is far enough away for him to pretend he is still alone – holding onto Dimitri. The figure to his left, frozen, Callum. He looks at Callum and momentarily see's himself in the young mind; now wounded forever by the truth of what this job causes and what it looks like when it's directly in front of them, no longer on a screen or in numerical data. The techie can't hold the contact, and quickly turns away.

Then twisting on the ground closer than his colleagues, lies Sasha. Alive. As Harry rotates his body to loom over the boy, Sasha sees the entire worlds sorrow and vehemence begin burn in this man like nothing he's ever seen before. He sits up, raises both hands in defence and begins his desperate plea. Russian words, white noise, as Harry steps closer, closer still, the cries bouncing off his chest as he snatches Sasha by the collar and hauls him to his feet. Callum instantly see's the reasoning. He does nothing.

"No!" a shriek airs suddenly somewhere from his right, "_Harry!_" Erin lurches forward as fists clench, but Dimitri grasps her by the shoulders, wrenches her backwards as she fights.

"Erin," he snarls, desperate in his own way, "Erin, don't – don't."

"He'll kill him," she spits, glaring as she struggles to pull away, "We can't consent to revenge, for God sake Dimitri!" But Dimitri holds his stance and tightens his grip, sharing a glance thick with guilt to Callum who nods, brow shadowed by a weighty frown.

Instinctively they close their eyes as Harry forces his foot into Sasha's blooded leg wound.

Then the colliding _crack_ of a ruby hand against Sasha's jaw. Followed by another which forces him to the ground where Harry kneels, takes Sasha's neck and begins to crush it. Heart throbbing too fast, vision blurred, Sasha swipes out desperately and strikes his fist into Harry's stomach, twice, pushing him off balance before meeting Harry's face with an equal crack of bone. Swiftly, Harry rolls and stands before Sasha can gather the strength to continue and is met with five consecutive ruthless kicks to the ribs, by which time, Dimitri is racing towards them.

"Harry!" he bellows, but his words dissipate before they register above Sasha's screams, "Harry – stop! You have to stop now!"

Hands meet shoulders. Dimitri uses his entire body weight to haul Harry away from Sasha's crumpling form. Then Erin is at his side, forcing Harry's arm down as he struggles, covered in a blend of Sasha's, Ruth's and his own blood, still crying, but not shouting. Not even speaking. He writhes continuously under their grasp and it's not until Callum adds further force that he cannot break free from their arrest and eventually succumbs to their orders. Dimitri's hot breath bellows through his ear, Callums arms in a lock around his chest, crushing him as they keep him still, four minds clueless as to whether Sasha is now alive or dead.

And as they hold him there, he fears for moment that should they ever let go, he will collapse to the earth and never find the strength to stand again.

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><p><em><strong>Depression to the max. Chapter 2 is already written so I can post if anyone wants me to :)<strong>_


	2. Chapter 2

_**I really appreciate every single review I received - thank you! I have to admit, I genuinely wasn't sure how this awfully emotional fic would be received so the positive feedback is great.**_

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><p>Malcolm cannot remember a time he felt this angry. He remembered Adam's death as carrying something similar to this level of desperosity. And Colin's.<p>

He finally voices the only thing he really feels he can.

"You did... everything you could." He says, staring out towards the fresh eighth of the cemetery where Ruth's headstone sinks into the pattern of headstone lines, watching. Listening.

"No," Harry shakes his head sharply. "That's the point. I didn't."

"Well I don't believe you _let_ it happen. I don't believe that for one second."

"I should have been quicker. I should have seen it coming."

"Harry, don't." Malcolm holds his stare away from Harry's, voice deep and much stronger than it's been for years.

"Don't what?"

"Don't become fixated on what could or should have been; it does no favours for anyone," then he shifts slightly to look at this broken man and insists. Though Harry's face is half blank – half numb – he knows he's listening, "We've both seen it countless times - chances missed - but in the moment, it's never that simple is it. How can you possibly blame yourself."

The delay in Harry's response is long enough for Malcolm to cut it by continuing.

"The fact is, you can't. And you shouldn't. After everything you've given to the Service over all these years I don't see how you can argue otherwise."

He's right of course.

"Forgive me Harry; I don't mean to sound callous."

"I know," he looks up and directly at his friend. "Thank you Malcolm. I don't know why I didn't come and see you earlier."

He chuckles softly, "Yes you do."

They slip into silence once again – Malcolm mentally cursing the freezing air, Harry longing for it to sting him soon enough as proof that he will start to feel something other than grief relatively soon. It doesn't sting though and after a while Malcolm moves to stand.

"Best be getting back," he says as he rises and Harry follows suit. "Can't keep mum waiting for too long; I told her I'd just popped out for the paper."

Harry nods and offers his hand for a second shake.

"It was really was a co-incidence finding you," Malcolm notes as their hands meet, "It was good to see you though. I only wish it could happen more often. Dare I ask if you're staying with the service?"

The expression that finds Harry's face is an answer in itself.

"I don't know," he admits. "I feel an obligation to – God knows why." He looks out to Ruth's grave, "We were so close to leaving it all behind."

Of all the things he's said in their fleeting encounter, that line hurts the most.

"You're a strong man Harry," he says, buttoning his coat, "Much stronger than you've ever given yourself credit for, I think. You have my innermost sympathies. And if there's anything I could do – in the future – to help... you know I can, and will."

As he gives a sharp nod of gratitude, Harry see's something in Malcolm that is only recent. Something that makes his eyes clearer. It lasts a couple of seconds before he smiles and leaves, taking the smile Harry so desperately wants to feel, with him.

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><p>It is only as he sits a home nine hours later in front of the muted television does that Harry realise it wasn't a look of sorrow or anger. It was acceptance.<p>

But not acceptance for Ruth's death – not yet. It was actually for Colin. So many years ago had Malcolm lost his best friend and only now did he look different, in that grave yard, in that moment.

It was proof then, if anything. It was proof that the grief would last for years. It was to sit in his stomach and burn, but eventually, the gaping space left by Ruth would wane somehow.

The pain would fade eventually. But her memory would live on for as long as he wanted it to - fiercely, and brilliant.

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><p><em><strong>End.<strong>_


End file.
